Archive for July, 2008
The Best Excuses — AHRMM Day 1
We’ve already had a great day at AHRMM in San Antonio.
It’s always good to connect with people face to face, and we’ve been able to do that with hospitals as well as vendors.
We’ve enjoyed getting the DMMs and others tell us the “best excuse” they’ve heard for a vendor not following the hospital’s registration procedures. Here are a few:
“I get there too early to register.” Which overlooks the obvious fact that you are here so just go ahead and register already.
“I’ll check in later.” When? After you’ve left?
And my favorite one from a distributor at AHRMM ‘08, a tradeshow targetted to purchasing and DMMs. “This is all a play by Purchasing to get control. I don’t want to talk to Purchasing. I want to talk with the users.” Really? Then why are you exhibiting at AHRMM?
But seriously, the recurring theme of our conversations has been consistently, “What’s the best way to manage these growing vendor credentialing requirements?” And we’ve heard insights from hospitals and vendors that we’ll apply to our growing credentialing business.
Add comment July 21, 2008
Yakima Regional Hospital’s Brockman Addresses New Vendor Credentialing Program
The Yakima Valley Business Times recently covered the launch of Yakima Regional Hospital’s vendor credentialing program. The article provided a complete and balanced summary of what’s going on at Yakima Regional and in hospitals across the U.S.
CFO Marty Brockman’s take on the situation was clear.
“The bottom line is we will not do business with any individuals or vendors that are currently excluded in any way from participating in federal health-care or procurement programs. To check people against those lists before, we had to go through and determine that ourselves. ”
According to Brockman, Yakima has thousands of vendors that would need to be cleared.
“That can be very time-consuming and it needs to be done correctly. But it really isn’t even necessarily the time it takes that concerned us. It’s the need to be 100 percent accurate.”
For Brockman, the driver was the risk of fines and penalties for doing business with excluded parties. Others start out their programs with an eye to controlling off-contract products. However it starts, it ends with the same conclusion — aggregate all the documentation requirements and let someone else manage the paperwork.
Add comment July 17, 2008
Greening the Supply Chain
Y2K notwithstanding, I don’t think I’ve seen more press around one issue than I have seen about “green.” It’s become such a marketing buzz that it’s almost hard put any credence into green and sustainability claims.
As more and more companies announce sustainability targets, I can hear the materials managers’ and purchasing professionals’ collective groans at the thought of tracking one more element of vendor compliance and credibility.
So I thought Adrienne Selko’s article in Industry Week made sense. She suggests automating the process of green purchasing from the beginning:
Companies can use a rules-based eProcurement system to incorporate certain criteria into the purchasing process e.g., vendors must meet certain green standards.
Consider other areas of compliance that you want to promote through supplier selection, including choosing vendors that follow your corporate values and promote social responsibility.
OUR TAKE: Your business is probably already tracking compliance initiatives of some kind –from acknowleding gift and gratuity policies to SDN checks. Go ahead and incorporate monitoring your green initiatives within your existing compliance tracking procedures.
If you don’t have your compliance and vendor credentialing integrated yet. It may be time to do that. You don’t want to waste energy creating a “green deal” with an ineligible supplier. Keeping all these pieces of vendor information centralized helps all the departments that interact with the suppliers stay true to your goals.
1 comment July 7, 2008
